IF you have speed, now is the time to use it.
There are schools sevens rugby tournaments played all over the country, where teams of Nelson Mandela Bay are in action, and it is clear that speed wins you matches in this format.
This coming Friday and Saturday, Nico Malan High School will host their annual sevens tournament for the third time in Humansdorp.
Grey High has already qualified for the finals of the Frogfoot Sevens being played on November 5 in Pretoria, but it is now time for the next leg of this tournament.
Outeniqua High will host this leg, the Kwaggas 7s, starting tomorrow already with u/13 and u/15 matches.
The real action is between the u/17s on Friday and Saturday in George and it should be a very exciting few days.
The winner of this tournament will join Grey in the finals. Grey College and Pietersburg are among the other teams that have also qualified for the finals.
Framesby from Gqeberha will participate in George and will no doubt want to advance further than the quarter-finals. They hosted a very successful tournament this past weekend and lost a close affair against Grey High in their quarter-final match.
Grey beat Framesby 19-15 but Marlow from Cradock was too strong for the Grey boys in the semis. Marlow won 25–12.
In the other semi, Outeniqua got the better of Daniel Pienaar of Kariega and it was undoubtedly the two best sides of the tournament, Outeniqua and Marlow, who tackled each other in the final on Saturday afternoon.
And what a thriller it was! Marlow started the match well but it was the Kwaggas that made better use of their opportunities and built up a solid 12–0 lead. Just before half-time Marlow scored and the fierce battle, a lot of really hard tackles went in, continued in the second half.
Marlow got their chance to score in the last minute after the Kwaggas gave away a penalty for a late tackle. With time up on the clock the scores were level at 12–12.
It is in these moments when you need speed and it was Keenan “Poena” Jantjies who provided that with a brilliant winning try for the Kwaggas.
Jude Frans was successful with the difficult conversion to seal a 19–12 victory.
Frans, a member of the South Western Districts sevens team, kicked very well throughout the tournament.
The winning try was Jantjies’ second in the final. He scored eight tries in the tournament. Ellie Meyer scored the Kwaggas’ other try in the final.
On their way to the final, the Kwaggas beat Nico Malan, Andrew Rabie, Grey B, Brandwag and Daniel Pienaar. They will be favourites to win in George.
After losing against the Kwaggas in their first match, Nico Malan came back strongly and beat Otto du Plessis 38–12 in an entertaining Plate Final.
Otto was very much in the contest but picked up a few injuries and then just ran out of steam.
